November 5th-27th, 2016** 
Opening reception: November 5th: 6-9pm**
Gallery hours: Saturday 11-5pm

Platform Gallery is pleased to present a r t + c r u s h: Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., on view at 116 W Mulberry Street. This group exhibition will highlight the concept of the art crush- a phenomenon where an artist would admire, follow, and be inspired by another artist. This exhibition will include the works by: Elliott Jerome Brown Jr., Aqeel Malcolm, Joiri Minaya, Matthew Morrocco and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.

a r t + c r u s h is an annual exhibition curated by Platform with the hope of celebrating art crushes as a studio practice. a r t + c r u s h is an investigation into the relationships between the crusher and the crushed.

Crushes are more popularly recalled as painfully beautiful experiences of infatuation. They are loyal loves from afar that usually end in some sort of odd admiration. Due to social media and web trolling, crushes can now blossom without even the slightest of communication. To develop an art crush, an artist must be faithfully dedicated to support another artist’s work and studio practice. a r t + c r u s h: Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. presents Brown’s newest body of work while exhibiting the work of his crushes: Aqeel Malcolm, Joiri Minaya, Matthew Morrocco, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed.

ELLIOTT JEROME BROWN JR. is a conceptual photographer working on ideas related to intimacy, vulnerability, and social perception within the intersection of Blackness and queer identity. The resulting images, set within biographical, private, and public spaces, demonstrate how the subjective body is in tension with past and available imagery, as well as with politicized representations of the body. Elliott received his BFA in Photography and Cultural Analysis from New York University. His work has been featured in publications such as New York magazine, Newspaper, and Mossless: Private/Public/Portrait. He has exhibited in the United States, Mexico, and the Czech Republic. In addition to a visual practice, Elliott is also the curator of DATE NIGHT, an interdisciplinary exhibition set in various homes. Organized under a guiding, discursive question, the exhibition facilitates intimate conversations on the exhibiting artists’ works and practices.

AQEEL MALCOLM explores the intersections of his identity as a Black, Queer, African American, and Jamaican American male and addresses “masculinity,” what defines it today, and the effects of that definition. Malcolm is a fiber artist and weaver living and working in New York, and his work references the barbershop to explore spaces where men convene and the objects that inhabit them. Aqeel Malcolm is the first recipient of the Edward and Sally Van Lier Arts Fellowship at the Museum of Arts and Design and graduated with a BFA in Fiber and a concentration in Experimental Fashion from Maryland Institute College of Art with several awards to his credit.

JOIRI MINAYA is a Dominican - American artist born in 1990. Living between the United States and the Dominican Republic (and having lived in Belgium for a while) has made Minaya aware of her own difference and subjectivity depending on context. Influenced by this, her work meditates on representation, identity constructions, gender roles, migration and nature from a personal place but also through larger transcultural and historical frames. She graduated from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Visuales (ENAV) in Santo Domingo, D.R. in 2009, the Altos de Chavón School of Design in La Romana, D.R. in 2011 and Parsons the New School for Design in 2013. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. Minaya is the recipient of a 2015 Joan Mitchell Foundation Emerging Artist Award, a Great Prize and the Audience Award in the XXV Concurso de Arte Eduardo León Jimenes at the Centro León in Santiago, D.R., and the Great Prize of the XXVII National Biennial of the Museum of Modern Art in Santo Domingo. She lives and works in Manhattan, NY, maintaining a strong artistic presence and family ties in the Dominican Republic.

MATTHEW MOROCCO is an artist working with aesthetic and personal histories. He received a BA in Philosophy and Art Theory from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and an MFA from Columbia University. He is a 2016 NYFA Fellow. More information can be found on his website. 

KAMEELAH JANAN RASHEED (b. 1985, East Palo Alto, CA) is an artist, writer, and former public school social studies teacher. A 2006 Amy Biehl U.S. Fulbright Scholar to South Africa, Rasheed holds an Ed.M (2008) in Secondary Education from Stanford University as well as a BA (2006) in Public Policy and Africana Studies from Pomona College. She has exhibited her work at Jack Shainman Gallery, Studio Museum in Harlem, Bronx Museum, Queens Museum, BRIC Art Gallery, Weeksville Heritage Museum, Smack Mellon Gallery, Vox Populi Gallery, MoCADA, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The Leroy Neiman Gallery, the Soap Factory, among others. Currently, she is an artist in residence at Smack Mellon and on faculty at SVA. Selected residencies, fellowships and honors include: Creative Exchange Lab at the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (2016), Keyholder Residency at Lower East Side Print Studio (2015), Commissioned Artist, Triple Canopy Commissions at New York Public Library Labs (2015), Artadia: The Fund for Art and Dialogue Grant (2015), A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship, Queens Museum Jerome Emerging Artist Fellowship (2015), Process Space Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Residency (2015), Artist in the Marketplace - Bronx Museum Participant (2015), Art Matters Grantee (2014), Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grantee (2014), New Museum R&D: Choreography Seminar Participant (2014), Vermont Studio Center Residency (2014), Working Classroom Teaching Artist (2014). She has spoken and facilitated discursive programming at a number of institutions such as the MET (forthcoming), MoMA, Brooklyn Museum, Queens Museum, The Museum of the City of New York, the Center for Book Arts, Creative Time, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Interference Archive, School of Visual Arts, Parsons, The New School, NYU, Columbia University, Barnard, and the University of Illinois.http://www.kameelahr.com/